


In Focus

by Wonderlandleighleigh



Series: Photos old and new [2]
Category: Batman - Fandom, Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Futurefic, Gen, Kidfic, crossovers, mishmash continuity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-28
Updated: 2016-08-28
Packaged: 2018-08-11 11:14:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7889278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wonderlandleighleigh/pseuds/Wonderlandleighleigh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ramona Winchester, rolling along.</p>
<p>Follow up to Faded Snapshots</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Focus

1.

It’s a really tiny apartment, and it’s in the worst neighborhood in Gotham. One bedroom, one bathroom, itty bitty kitchen, but there’s a fire escape that she can eat dinner on when it’s warm. 

She’s comfortable in Gotham, from her very first night in her tiny, pre-war apartment. It’s not a terribly safe city, but Ramona Winchester hasn’t lead a terribly safe life. 

The bat signal hangs high in the sky as she sets her colt 1911 with the pearl handle by her bed, filled with salt rounds, and sleeps easy. 

2\. 

Culinary school is great. It’s challenging, and it’s so far removed from what she knows, she can’t help but love it.

Some of the other students take a shine to her early on, and they talk about cooking and food and their lives and Ramona has never had a group of friends before. Shirley, Ahkmed, Shaniqua and Chow are great people. Funny and a little mean, and amazing cooks. 

Shirley specializes and butchery and charcuterie and cheeses, while Ahkmed is a complete francophile, down to the snails he insists on making them for dinner one night. Shaniqua is fascinated by Sezuan cooking, and Chow’s matzo ball soup is ridiculous, as is their ability to cure and smoke a salmon. 

Ramona’s focus is distinctly southern Cajun/Creole, and her friends are fascinated by how simple, and how good it is. She boils shrimp and makes gumbo. She steams crabs and fries catfish, and they’re all a little thrown.

“I hate to admit it,” Ahkmed tells her. “I always thought American southern cooking was a little trashy...but...damn.” 

Ramona beams. 

3\. 

Daddy keeps a pot he uses specifically for making red beans and rice in the trunk of the Impala, on top of the compartment with all the weapons in it. The pot is at least twenty years old. 

He grins over the phone and she can hear it. “You want the pot, huh?” 

“I can’t make it right without it. I’ll send it back.” 

“Just bring it back with you when you come visit,” Daddy tells her. “You uh...y’know...Thanksgiving is right around the corner, so-” 

“I’ll be there with bells on,” she grins.

4\. 

She makes the red beans and rice a week later, her friends sitting in her tiny apartment, on the used couch, drinking boxed wine and laughing. 

Something thumps against her fire escape, and she squeaks in shock, everyone else getting to their feet and shouting. 

“Holy crap a bat landed on your ledge!” Chow cries.

Her friends snap photos. He’s dressed in red and black, some sort of symbol on his chest, a cowl covering his pained face as he slumps onto the grating. 

“Guys, come on,” she says, ladling a bowl of red beans and rice and herding them away, before climbing out the window and onto the escape. 

He looks up at her, and grits his teeth. “I’m fine,” he tells her. 

“Okay,” she says gently. “But it’s getting kinda chilly. Eat this, it’ll at least warm you up.” 

He eats fast, there on the fire escape, and she leaves him to it, while her friends stare still. Ramona does her best to distract them. To not let him become some sort of sideshow. 

He leaves the bowl on the ledge when he’s done. 

5\. 

Thanksgiving is great. They cook and eat and watch football, and they talk. Crowley pops in, eyeing Ramona like a piece of well-aged meat. 

“It’s family time,” Dean snaps. “Leave.” 

Crowley rolls his eyes, but winks at Ramona and she shivers a little. 

She leaves after the weekend, and starts salting her windows and doors back in Gotham.

6\. 

“I just don’t think it’s particularly safe,” Castiel says as he follows her home from school one day.

“I’m a Winchester,” she reminds him. “Nowhere is safe.” 

“But you picked one of the most dangerous cities in the entire world,” Castiel argues. “I worry.” 

Ramona smiles and pecks his cheek. “I appreciate it. But I’m okay.” 

“May I sleep on your couch?” 

“No,” she says automatically, and then rolls her eyes. “Fine. Yeah.” 

7\. 

The same bat-member who landed on her fire escape before Thanksgiving winds up there again, but clearly on purpose. 

He waves at her and gives her an awkward smile, and she slides the heavy window open, leaning out. 

“Back for more food?” 

“Just saying a quick thank you,” he tells her.

“You’re welcome, Hero,” she grins. “Coffee?” 

“Uh…” 

“I already made some,” she says. “It’s really good. I found it at this little stand at the farmer’s market in the Bowery the other day. It is to die for.” 

“The Bowery has a farmer’s market?” 

She nods.

He hesitates still, and Ramona rolls her eyes, ducking inside and filling a thermos, stepping back over to hand it to him.

“Here. To-go.” 

He grins, awkward, but adorable. “Why...why are you so nice to me?” 

She shrugs. “You do a pretty thankless job with all the weirdos in this town.” 

He nods. “I’m uh...Red Robin.” 

“Ramona.” 

“Thank you for the coffee, Ramona.” 

“Bring back the thermos when you’re done, Red Robin.” 

He nods, and grins wider, before jumping off the fire escape. 

Ramona watches, and shrugs, before heading back inside.

8.

Job hunting is a little rough. Her hours are limited with school being what it is, but the restaurants in the area occasionally hire students. 

Jackson’s serves American cuisine that’s homey and fresh. The owner, Mark Jackson, doesn’t want a resume. He wants to see what she can do. 

Ramona makes a small batch smothered pork chops with a side of steamed bacon and kale, and waits for the verdict, standing straight with her hands behind her back.

9.

“Hey! Good job, baby girl!” Daddy cries over the phone that night. 

She beams as she cooks herself dinner. “Line cook. It’s a start.” 

“It’s great,” Daddy says.

There’s a tap at her window, and she looks up to see Red Robin standing on her fire escape, waving the empty to-go cup. 

“Daddy, I have a visitor, I’ll call you back.” 

10\. 

It’s easy to convince Mark to donate leftover food to the South Street clinic. Her neighbor runs the place; a kindly older woman named Leslie who provides health services to the less fortunate of Gotham.

Ramona steps in, holding a giant stock pot. “I hope your patients like lobster bisque, because we made way too much.” 

Leslie chuckles. She’s standing at the front desk with a young man around Ramona’s age; tall and lean, dark-haired and blue-eyed with a grin that Ramona swears she’s seen somewhere before. 

“Ramona Winchester, this is Tim Drake,” Leslie says, gesturing. “His father is a dear friend of mine, and one of our main donors. Tim, Ramona is my neighbor.” 

“Hi,” she says with a smile, and Tim Drake looks at her like he knows her; like they’ve met. 

“Hi,” he says. “That’s a lot of lobster bisque.” 

“Ramona works at Jackson’s,” Leslie explains as Ramona settles the pot down. “She’s convinced her employer to start donating extra food to us.” 

“No sense in it going to waste,” Ramona says. “I’m gonna go get the bowls out of my car.” 

“Do you need help?” Tim Drake asks quickly.

She lifts an eyebrow. “You wanna carry the spoons?” 

He grins.

11\. 

Tim Drake starts bringing his business lunches to Jackson’s, and her coworkers tease her a little. 

Julio nudges her as he walks past. “Your li’l boyfriend is here again.” 

“You mean your mom?” Ramona jokes, and the rest of the kitchen laughs, before getting back to work. 

He comes in for dinner one night, by himself, has a quiet meal, and stays for longer than Mark would normally let anybody stay, but he’s Bruce Wayne’s Kid(tm), and Mark knows what’s good for business. 

She comes out at the end of her shift to have a drink at the bar, and he grins at her, a little nervous. 

“Hi,” she says mildly. 

“Uh…” he stammers a little. “So...hey.” 

She nods and sips her whiskey sour. “I hope dinner was good.” 

“Oh it- it was excellent.” 

“I’m glad.” 

“I’m glad I caught you,” he says, getting to his feet. 

“You knew you would,” she tells him, amused. “Did you need something?” 

“...Can I walk you home?” 

“I don’t need a bodyguard,” she tells him automatically.

“I was honestly just hoping to enjoy your company,” he admits, looking sheepish.

Ramona blinks. “Oh.” She sips more of her drink. “Okay. Yeah. Let me uhm...I need to finish up in back, but...yeah.” 

12\. 

He walks her home once a week, and on the third week, it starts to snow on their way back to her apartment. 

He looks up and beams. “I love snow.” 

And she agrees. 

And they walk. 

13\. 

He’s sweet, and good-natured, and kind. 

And Ramona wouldn’t be a Winchester if it all went smoothly.

Red Robin shows up on her fire escape again, and she knows the smile now. Knows why Tim’s was so familiar. 

“So...this is what you get up to after you walk me home, huh?” she asks, leaning back against the building. 

He sighs. “I was hoping you wouldn’t put the pieces together quite so easily.” 

“Sorry, Hero,” she says. “You’re not subtle.” 

The kiss is soft, and sweet, and she feels a little sad when he pulls away to jump off and use a grappling hook to propel onto a neighboring rooftop. 

14\. 

“Well. Your little boyfriend seems...bland.” 

“Go away, Crowley.” 

16\. 

Wayne Foundation charity galas are mostly bland. She actually likes to help cater them better than actually going on Tim’s arm, but he pouts and Ramona caves. 

He’s just so damn cute. 

Quite a few girls look at her with intense hatred and clear, slimy green jealousy, and she can’t help but smirk a little as Tim pulls her close to whisper something in her eyes. 

17\. 

Bruce Wayne is not the foppish weirdo the papers make him out to be. 

Nope. It turns out he’s stern, and smart and calculating, and when he drops a very thick manila envelope on his desk at Wayne Enterprises, the sound makes Ramona flinch. 

She knows what it is. 

“That, Ms. Winchester, is your record,” Mr. Wayne tells her. “I pulled some strings with Social Services. It wasn’t hard to acquire.” 

All Ramona can manage is a soft, ashamed “oh,” as she clutches her purse with her fingers. 

“I’ve read it.” 

“Okay.” 

“It’s not good.” 

“Not very, no,” Ramona agrees. She knows what it says; she knows what it details. The petty theft and the neglect and the missed school and the moving around and the malnutrition when she was very little. 

The stay at the hospital after she got shot when she was very very little. 

“Tim’s seen it too,” Bruce tells her, and she feels the color drain from her face. 

18.

“I don’t care about any of that,” Tim tells her, stroking her hair away from her face. His voice is so soft. “You had a hard life. That’s not your fault.” 

She looks away. 

“I’ve done things I’m not proud of,” he admits. “There are things that have happened to me that can never be made right. But they weren’t my fault.” 

Ramona gives him a confused look, and tilts her head. 

He takes a breath and looks down at their hands as he absently plays with her fingers. “A couple of years ago, I was kidnapped by the Joker. It was two weeks, and...and I wound up killing him..” 

His hands are trembling as he recounts what happened. 

That haunted look in his eyes; that look that screams “I went to hell, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt and an semi filled with anguish” is hard to ignore. She’s seen it so many times before, she wonders how he’s not locked up in a padded cell somewhere. 

She decides that all that matters is that he’s not.

19\. 

Tim is lean and tall and warm, and he feels so right laying naked in her bed. 

Ramona strokes his hair lightly as he sleeps, pressing her lips to his forehead.

20\. 

She swings open the door the day before Christmas. She’s been waiting for this day since the minute she moved out.. 

Daddy grins sheepishly. “Hey, Princess.” 

She grins ruefully and nods. “Hey, Daddy.” 

“You got an hour?” he asks hopefully. “Got a demon thing I could use some backup on. Your uncle is doing research back home, and I thought-” 

“It’s really only gonna take an hour?” 

He shrugs and gives her a grin. 

21\. 

It takes two days.

They work through Christmas, and it’s Crowley. 

Of course. 

He knocks her father out, and so it’s just them. 

“You and your tiny little life,” Crowley muses. “Left the hunting behind for a tiny, dingy little flat, and your boring little job and your bland little boy toy.” 

Ramona says nothing. 

“I can take it in a second,” he snaps a finger. “Make it all go away, Ramona. Just because I want to.” 

She blows out a bored breath, crossing her arms. 

“Don’t you patronize me!” 

She looks him in the eyes, mostly just annoyed. She’s scared, sure. Scared that Crowley will make good and rip her new life away. Kill her friends and her boyfriend and drag her down to hell by her hair. 

Not that he needs to know that. 

“Shit,” she says slowly. “Or get of. The pot.” 

21\.   
When she gets home, covered in cuts and bruises and blood that’s mostly not hers, Tim has just landed on her fire escape, and his eyes widen when she opens up the window and climbs out. 

“Oh, my god.” 

He immediately starts checking her, ripping his gauntlets off and sliding his hands over her carefully, checking for breaks and sprains, and she grabs one of his bandoleers and yanks him into a hard, deep, slow kiss. 

Because it’s been two days, and she missed Christmas, and she just told the the King of Hell to jump off a damn cliff, and she’s a Winchester, and sex fixes everything, right? 

22\. 

There’s a tap on her window, and it’s not Red Robin. 

Ramona blinks and slips it open, letting in the chilly, early January air. On the other side of the window, floating on her fire escape…

Is Superboy.

She blinks rapidly. “Uh...help you with something?” 

“Huh,” Superboy muses. “You’re hot.” 

Ramona nods slowly, considering that. “Well. Yes.” 

“Rob’s girlfriend is hot,” Superboy reiterates. 

“Who?” 

“Oh! Sorry, nickname. Red Robin,” Superboy clarifies. “You’re his girlfriend.” 

She’s never been someone’s girlfriend. Just a make-out buddy, but…

“I guess I am.” 

“If you hurt him, he has a lot of friends who can do things like bend steel and shoot lasers from their eyes,” Superboy tells her. “Just so you know.” 

“Mhm,” she nods, not telling him that if Tim hurts her, she has a father who follows through too often when he promises to murder someone, an uncle that’s too smart and too unhinged for his own good, and an angel of the lord who will do pretty much whatever they say. “Noted.” 

“So we’re clear.” 

“Crystal.” 

Things are getting awkward now. 

“Okay well...you know, maybe you and Tim and me and Wonder Girl can go on a double date sometime…” 

Ramona blinks. “I’ll check my dates with my secretary,” she tells him, and then closes the window.

23.

They all giggle and clink glasses. Shirley, Chow, Shaniqua and Ahkmed sit around the very fancy table with her at Stanley’s, toasting to surviving their first year of cooking school. 

“So? How is your super-hot, super-rich boyfriend?” Ahkmed asks, and he has a slightly jealous tinge to his voice. He’s been daydreaming about the Wayne boys for years ,apparently. 

“He’s good,” Ramona nods. “Busy, but he’s good.” 

“Ugh,” Chow groans. “Just marry him and put us all out of our misery.” 

The rest of the table laughs, and Ramona flushes, and laughs nervously. 

Do Winchesters live long enough to get married…? 

24.

The Valentine’s Day Wayne Foundation charity gala. 

Stephanie Brown is taller than Ramona, her hair a lighter shade of blonde, and her eyes a crystal blue instead or Ramona’s green. Her breasts are bigger, her hips are a little wider, and she has way more muscles. 

In short, she looks like a superhero, where Ramona decidedly does not.

“Don’t worry about me,” Stephanie tells her. “Believe me, Timmers and I have been donzo for a long time.” 

“You dated?” Ramona asks, lifting an eyebrow.

“Hey!” Tim cries, stepping over. “Steph. You’re here. And you’re talking to my new girlfriend. That’s...that’s so great!” 

His voice is nervous, in that “oh god oh god please kill me” kind of way. 

Steph smirks. “I was just about to tell Ramona about that time I hit you in the face with a brick.” 

Ramona blinks and looks from Steph to Tim and back again. “Was it a big brick?” 

They get along famously, turns out.

24\. 

Her friends become his friends and his friends become her friends. 

Tim has video game nights with Ahkmed, and Ramona goes for drinks with Steph and he and Chow argue about computers and she takes Cassie to the gun range. Duke comes over for dinner. Shirley keeps begging to style Tim’s hair.

Instead of just one thermos of coffee, she leaves out a few on her fire escape. 

One night Batman takes one, and she waves awkwardly, and he nods and she guesses this is a thing now. 

He stays over a lot. A lot, to the point of his brothers calling her phone to get in touch with Tim, because he’s too tangled up in the sheets of her bed to reach his phone in time, and Ramona kind of likes it that way. 

25\. 

“I want us to move in together,” he tells her. “I could move in here.” 

“This place?” Ramona scoffs. “With the rats in the walls?” 

“It’s special,” Tim tells her. “It’s ours.” 

“It’s old and dingy.” 

“It’s perfect.” 

“There’s not enough room.” 

“We’ll make room, Ramona.” 

She bites her lip. 

“Do you not want me to move in?” he asks. 

She hesitates. “You have such nice things.” 

“Ramona…” 

“And...I don’t know where my couch was before I found it on the side of the road,” she admits. 

Tim sighs and kisses her forehead. “I really don’t care.” 

26\. 

“What’s all this?” 

Ramona freezes. It’s late and they’re still moving Tim in. Her old couch is gone, replaced by his, because it’s nicer, and probably less gross. 

Tim is gazing down into a drawer in the kitchen, frowning a little. The contents are nothing but packets of condiments and spices. Salt and pepper packets, ketchup. Mustards of varying flavors, and barbecue sauces. Honeys and Jams and syrups. 

“It’s...it’s a weird habit,” she tells him awkwardly. “A habit from when I was little and we were poor. I just...do it.” 

“Oh,” he says softly. “O-okay. Well...that’s fine. You know. I have weird habits, too.” 

“Going out at night in red kevlar and punching people in funny get-ups in the face?” she offers. 

He cracks a grin and nods. “Yes, that.” 

27\. 

He jerks awake in a cold sweat and it wakes her up too. 

He’s shaking all over as he sits up, perched on the edge of the bed in a thin tank top and his boxer-briefs, hair disheveled and skin clammy and pale. 

Ramona slides up behind him. “Hero?” 

“I...go back to bed I’m…” 

Her hands settles on his shoulders carefully, slowly. “You’re not fine.” 

“I...I will be.” 

“Yeah. But I can help speed that up,” she says in his ear. “Let me hold you?” 

He goes loose in her arms, slumping back against her. She knows he hears laughing in his dreams. So much laughing, the same way gunshots and screams ring out in hers. 

They stay like that until the sun comes up. 

28\. 

“Him?!” Crowley cries as he strangles Tim with just a flick of his wrist. “This bland waste of oxygen is who you choose?!” 

“Why?” Ramona asks, trying to stay calm. Trying not to anger Crowley enough for him to snap Tim’s neck. “Who was I supposed to choose? You?” 

Crowley turns to her, dropping Tim, and turns his attention on her. “One of you was bloody-well supposed to. Your father didn’t. But then there was always you…” 

She shakes her head. “Why would I ever choose you?” 

He snarls, and chokes her instead. She gasps for air just as a well-aimed batarang grazes his hand, breaking Crowley’s concentration. 

Crowley glowers at Tim, who’s made his way to the bandoleers hanging on the back of a chair. “Not so bland after all. More reason to kill him.” 

Ramona grabs the gun from her bedside table and cocks it. “Not one more step.” 

“It won’t kill me,” Crowley reminds her, glancing back at her. 

“No, but they’re salt rounds, so it’ll hurt like a son of a bitch,” she reminds him. “Step away from the boyfriend. Now.” 

29\. 

She teaches Tim how to demon-proof the apartment. She pulls out one of the anti-possession charms she has, and gives it to him, begging him to wear it. She finally explains the anti-possession tattoo on her ankle. 

Daddy calls that night. 

“You wanna explain to me why Crowley is drunk on human blood and crying in my kitchen?” 

“He asked me to the prom and I turned him down,” Ramona says as she slumps down onto the fire escape.

“...Scuse me?” 

“He’s jealous of Tim,” Ramona clarifies. 

There’s a long silence before Daddy says anything else. 

“I’m gonna kill him.” 

“Please do,” Ramona says, and they hang up, and she stays outside for a long moment, breathing deeply. She can hear Tim typing away on his computer inside the apartment, and the sound relaxes her like rain on the roof, and she closes her eyes. 

30\. 

Weeks pass. Months, too, and they move to a larger place in the city, a nicer place. 

Mark promotes Ramona to sous chef, and Tim gets bumped to head of R&D at Wayne Enterprises. 

Classes, and dates, and lunches with friends. The occasional visit from her father and uncle. Crowley never comes back. 

It’s winter again before she knows it, and the flap of angel wings in her kitchen makes her turn her head from the carrots she’s dicing. 

“Hey, Cas,” she says. “Hungry?” 

“I’m not,” Castiel tells her. 

There’s something in his voice. 

There’s something off in his voice that sounds the same as when…

All those times when 

She turns around slowly and braces herself on the counter. 

“Ramona…” 

She bites her lip. “When? How?” 

“Last night,” Castiel tells her gently. “They saved the world.” 

She takes a shaky breath. “They’ll come back,” she says. “They always come back.’ 

“I’m afraid...I’m afraid not this time,” he says. “Heaven has decided they’ve paid their dues. With Crowley gone and hell’s gates closed off, it’s been decided that there isn’t a need for them here anymore. That they’ve earned their rest.” 

Silence settles over the kitchen, and Ramona wipes her eyes as tears slide down.

31\. 

“I’ll come with you,” Tim says, stroking her hair back from her face, and pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead. “Let me come with you.” 

32\. 

She goes to Kansas by herself, and Castiel meets her there. The woods behind the Bunker are deep and abandoned enough that setting up and executing a couple of funeral piers isn’t noticed. 

Ramona watches the bodies of her family go up in smoke silently. 

“Jody and the girls couldn’t make it-” Castiel starts to say. “They-” 

“Can I just...can I have a minute?” she asks. “I...I-I know they were your family, too, but-” 

He nods, resting his hand on her shoulder for just a moment before walking off. 

She stands alone, arms wrapped around herself in the cold. 

“You weren’t originally a part of the story, you know.” 

She takes a deep breath, but doesn’t respond as Chuck steps up to stand next to her.

“Originally it was gonna be all Sam and Dean all the way to the end,” he continues. “Riding that long highway into the sunset.” 

She just watches the bodies burn, feeling smoke and tears sting her eyes. 

“And then I thought...what if there was somebody who could make it out?” Chuck says gently. “No big destiny. No great purpose. What if one Winchester got the chance at that little slice of apple pie life that Sam and Dean both so desperately dreamed about but knew they could never have?” 

Ramona covers her eyes, unable to help the soft sob that breaks through, and he wraps an arm around her. 

“I know you’re sad,” Chuck tells her. “I know you’re...heartbroken that it ended, and that you weren’t here. That you didn’t get the chance to try and save them, or say goodbye. But they’ve always loved you, through everything. And they want you to keep having a good life. They’re so proud of you, Ramona. We all are.” 

She wipes her eyes and nods. 

33\. 

They drink, the three of them, a lot. And in the morning, when she wakes up alone with an intense hangover, Ramona carefully packs up the items that mean the most. 

Daddy’s amulet and old photos. The laptops and journals, a couple of old toys. A few of their favorites knives and guns. Uncle Sam’s DVD’s. 

She finds the keys to the Impala, and grips them tightly, as she settles the full duffel bag into the trunk, before getting into the driver’s seat. 

It smells the same. Like gunsmoke and coffee, and she takes a deep breath, before hanging the amulet on the rear view, and starting her up. 

Fresh tears well up in her eyes as Travelin’ Riverside Blues starts playing on the stereo, but she fights them off, and drives back toward the east coast.

Back toward life.


End file.
